Ten
years ago I started a script. Or, wait…it wasn't a script at first. It was a
novel, actually. Ten years ago I started
a novel.

Archer
was a toddler and I had just finished my second unpublished book and was
determined three times would be the charm. I was a force of fiction-writing
nature in those days, determined to write one novel a year, which I did, until
I gave birth to my first child. I kept writing, of course, hundreds of
thousands of words a year… but most of those words ended up here, on this
website.

Still,
I was determined to write fiction. I was still young and had an unflinching
amount of chutzpah when it came to rejection. Each rejection was a branch, I
told myself. And I couldn't get to the top of thee tree without branches. So I
climbed. And I climbed. And I kept climbing.

The
original title of my third novel was Wendy and the Lost—a modern take on Peter Pan but from Wendy's POV. The book was my first for a
"YA audience," although I never saw it as such. Adults do not
suddenly grow out of reading stories. Old readers need young heroines, too.

I
had spent much of my childhood LOVING Peter and the lost boys while despising
Wendy and Tinker Bell, who were depicted in the book, as well as the Disney
adaptation, as overly protective/maternal-to-a-fault/wet blanket (Wendy) and
jealous/vindictive/mean spirited/mean girl (Tinker Bell).

In
Peter’s world, as well as in my learned experience, boys were curious
adventure-seekers who slouched and got dirty and had all kinds of fun being
irresponsible and boyish. They were allowed to do stupid shit a la boys will be boys. They were curfew-less
mischief-makers, digging their tools into trees and their heels onto gas
pedals. They crashed into each other with their bodies and everyone applauded.

Over
the years I drew parallels between the story of Peter Pan and my own adolescence. I grew up, in the way Wendys do,
and in doing so realized there was much more to this story—to MY story—but also
to hers… that in so many ways, Peter Pan
represented what was lacking in fairy tales and bedtime stories and ALL WORKS
OF ART WRITTEN, DIRECTED AND CONCEIVED BY MEN. There was another story, here—about a girl—whose narrative was never
included in the book.

I
read Barrie's Peter Pan several times
through the years, always looking for a Wendy I couldn’t find. It became clear to me that while Wendy
was intended to be the heroine all along—the protagonist—she remained
practically invisible. Ubiquitous, yes, but also unnecessary—a girl transported
into a world of boys only to be used as a sort of tool for contrast. Wendy's
practicality and realism gave Peter and the boys that much more appeal. As for Wendy, we never got a chance to see,
or even realize, her magic.

I
found myself in many situations where I realized I was the same. I was living
my story within the pages of other people's manuscripts and taking care of
people who never bothered to ask me about my day. I said YES instead of NO to appease
the stories of others, at the risk of losing my own.

I
came to this and about 787897 other realizations when outlining the book. I began drawing more and more parallels
between the story of Peter Pan and
the stories of almost every woman I knew -- girls who wanted to get lost in Neverland, too.

After
an early draft of Wendy and the Lost, it became clear to me that
this wasn't a book—this was a movie. I was already feeling frustrated by the
lack of female driven films and stories told realistically for young people
when my first daughter, Fable, was born. Fable’s birth turned me in a
completely different direction as a mother and woman, thrusting me full-on into
a creative and political femaissance.

Fable
became my muse.

My
first draft of "Wendy and the Lost" (which was essentially about high
schools kids and drug use) was atrocious and I hated every minute I spent
writing it. I knew it sucked from page one, but for whatever reason, I kept on
writing, kept on sucking, kept on despising everything about every word.

This is a first draft, I told myself. JUST. KEEP. WRITING. GO, GO GOGOGOGO!!!

So
I did.

I
wrote a second draft after that. And a third after that, polishing my piece of
shit as best I could.

Then,
after much hand-wringing and tears, I scrapped the entire draft (and months of
work) and started from scratch. Same name. Same story. This time, though, "Wendy"
wasn't just any high school student, she was THE KICKER ON THE SCHOOL FOOTBALL
TEAM!

I
spent months on this new version of my story. I stalked high school football
playing girls on twitter—became obsessed with female athletes who competed
against boys and men, and once again, wrote a very mediocre draft. I spent
about a year with this version before once again scrapping and starting fresh—
this time with a new title and a new (and also OLD) direction. This time, I
would do what I had always done best: write a story inspired by MY experience.

And
so, ten drafts and almost three years later, I started again.

New
draft.

Page
one.

Fade
in...

Sometimes
it takes a minute or an hour or a year or ten years to realize what you really,
truly want to write about. It happens to me when I sit down to write a post.
every. single. time. Most posts start out in completely different directions
before I realize they are actually about something else. I've
sat down to write about marriage only to end up writing about potty training.
I've sat down to write about the politics of preschool etiquette only to
realize halfway through I am actually writing about my own insecurity in large
groups. Some posts take me months to finish. Hell, I have posts in drafts I
started years ago.

Writing
is a transportation vehicle, and sometimes when we least expect it, we end up
in a field we could have only arrived at had we taken a Mack truck to get
there.

This
is what happened to me. I knew I had something important to say. I knew I had a
personal story to tell. I knew Peter Pan
was how I wanted to tell it. But it took many years and many failed drafts
before I recognized what, when, why and how...

When
I met Linda, my now producer, mentor, guide and friend, Archer was in kindergarten.
I was working on my newest draft of PANS, and over coffee mentioned it to her
in passing. It was a mess, I explained, but it was getting somewhere...

I
told her about Wendy's many incarnations and that in this new draft I was
taking a far more daring approach to the character, basing her, instead, on me and
my experience as a (gulp) teenage girl.

In
short, I pitched her my movie. And in doing realized I had
something.

I've
said this to Linda before, but I want to say it here, too. Sometimes we cannot
see ourselves through our own mirrors—sometimes it takes meeting someone to
say, "here, look this way..."

Linda
heard me that afternoon and because of that, I was able to keep writing. And
while it would take me another five years of rewrites to get PANS into its
current state, Linda was there for all of it. She still is. Her voice—Field of Dreams style—perpetually hums
in my ear when I feel overwhelmed by the scope of what we're doing and what
still needs to be done. "If you write this, we will make it. Just keep
writing. Keep pitching. Keep meeting. Keep keeping."

“Do
you want to direct this yourself?” she asked.

Without
hesitation I said yes.

***

Two
summers ago, on my 34th birthday, we had our first pre-pre-production meeting.
The script was done (I’m laughing because it has been rewritten AT LEAST ten
more times since then) and with it, my first glimpse of the
light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel. Months later, I met with our now casting director, and by January of last year, we were casting.

I
took a picture that day of the empty chair before our first actor came to read
for the starring role (Wynne/Wendy), and on the way home, I cried. I had never experienced
anything like that before. One by one, INCREDIBLY talented teenage girls came
into the casting room and became a character I had conceived. They dressed like
her. They walked like her. They spoke her truth as if it were their own.

At
first, I tried to cover my scared-shitlessness with a false sense of “I got
this,” but over the course of the first round of auditions, it became clear
that separating my professional self from my personal self was not an option. And
so I just went with it. My voice cracked. My hands shook. My sweat… was everywhere.

I
recognized my inexperience, fully acknowledging that these young women, some as
young as 14, had far more experience than I did at castings.

And
yet, I had 34 years of experience being myself and, in that moment, and every
moment that has come next – in rooms where I have been a novice amongst old
pros – that’s what has mattered.

And
so I let myself cry when I felt moved to cry. I became emotionally involved
with every aspect of every moment. I made it personal, got attached, hugged
everyone, and realized my strength as a director was my strength as a mother—that
in the same way I wrote PANS for my teenage past, I was directing as a mother,
present—that this project, more than anything I had ever creatively done,
allowed me to be both my THEN and NOW selves. The mother and the child.

Over
the course of the next several months, I spent Friday mornings with my casting
team, reading young women and young men for the parts we would eventually cast.
I watched audition tapes from actors from all over the world. I fell in love
with MANY performers and performances -- mainly teenage girls and young women who blew me away with their REAL.

I
have more respect for teenage girls and young women now than I ever did
before—for young actors who get a bad rap, specifically young female actors who
in my experience have been INCREDIBLE and brilliant and warm and REAL and
collaborative —every. single. one.

It
feels strange and also scary to finally publish this post. Outside of close friends and family, I have
kept this project mostly to myself—folded up in my back pocket for the better
part of a decade. Meanwhile, I have spent thousands of hours on this project.
Hell, THOUSANDS OF DAYS. But I’m ready. I’m exited. And I’m proud of the work I
have done.

There
are times – like this one right now – when you find yourself at the top of your
tree with ten years of branches below you and realize, holy shit, I'm really
getting somewhere... look at this view, man! LOOK AT THIS VIEW! Which is what
I’m allowing myself to do – today – with this post.

Over
the years, there have been many times when I’ve thought, “what the fuck am I
even doing?” There have been times when people have asked me the same thing.
There have been multiple occasions of people trying to talk me out of directing
my own movie…

“Why
don’t you just sell the script and work on something else?”

“You’re
still working on the Peter Pan thing? Don’t you want to sell it and start
something new?”

…
But that was never an option. I had spent too many years raising this project
not to see her into adulthood…

Pans
was my fifth child.

Pans
IS my fifth child. A child I have raised and loved and learned A THOUSAND THINGS from.

Which
is why I’m writing this post – to introduce you, finally, to this project,
which has lived with me for as long as I’ve kept this blog… I have honed
characters, re-written plot lines, redesigned characters based on conversations
I have had with you… and I’m so grateful for that. I’m so grateful to have a
community of women who challenge and open me up – who make me feel safe, even
fearless…

Thank
you.

Thank
you for helping me build a platform from which to share and speak and exist
truthfully and explicitly, not just as a mother, but as a woman –
ever-evolving, changing, fucking up, making it work, trying my best to fight
forward, love deeply, speak my truth. Thank you for supporting me and each other;
I am a better mother, a better writer, a better woman because of you.

And
from here on out, I will be including you in this new mothering journey (and yes, it feels very much like a very long,
very drawn out labor.) Because this project isn’t just for me -- it’s for my
girls. It’s for my friends and family, sisters, strangers, you. It’s for every young woman who has ever been made to feel less
than because of her Wendyness. It's for survivors of sexual assault, most importantly teenaged survivors and those currently in the throes of adolescence. Pans is about strength and solidarity, vulnerability and dissent -- it's about speaking up and SAYING NO with ACTION and ART. It's about RESISTANCE and VOICE and what it means to stand with each other in solidarity. It's about young women who realize their power and raise themselves. It's about creating SISTERHOOD within the brotherhood.

It's about lost boys FOUND GIRLS.

Will
it be an uphill battle from here? Hell fucking yes. As I type this, we continue
to climb what is now an enormous, branch-filled, treacherous-ass tree.

We
still need a pretty massive sum of money to get us into production. (Yes, there will be crowdfunding campaign.
Soon. Very soon. More on that in a few days.) And after that, there will be
MANY MORE BRANCHES before we get to the top.